Billboards

No matter what people, the government, or the profiteers say, I will always believe that my actions were righteous. Nobody was hurt and nothing of actual value was lost. You can talk to me all day about personal property, but as far as I’m concerned, that property stops becoming personal when you’re shoving it into everyone’s eyeballs.

There is no escaping consumerism. From the second you wake up in the morning, to the moment you go to sleep, someone is trying to sell you something. Entire industries exist just to ensure that any second of contemplation or enjoyment you possibly could have in your day is filled by an advertisement of some sort. Think about how many areas that advertisements have crept their way into: movies,  television, Youtube, magazines, podcasts, iPhone apps, radio stations and sports stadiums. Even when you’re driving, the point at which you are supposed to be the most focused on the safety of yourself and others, they still manage to shove advertisements into your eyeballs in the form of billboards, one of the most disgusting aspects of the modern economy.

Whoever invented the billboard should be shot. They do nothing but distract drivers and uglify the highways. They all appeal to the most depraved and degenerate aspects of humanity. The streets are littered with advertisements for fast food, strip clubs and sleazy attorneys. It’s rare to find anything of value advertised on the side of the road. Like a Vegas casino, these signs are designed for the explicit purpose of wrapping people back into their vices.

We all know the stereotypes. Americans are all fat, lazy and stupid. The truth is that everyone is inclined to laziness; America just caters to those perversions. This country will shove addictive substances down your throat and then blame you for your dependence.

These companies will do anything to get you to part with your hard earned cash. They are not above addiction, so long as they think they can get away with it.  They got me hooked young. My parents would always come home late, drained of all their energy. They rarely ever cooked. Instead, on their way home, they would pull into the nearest drive thru and pick up some fast food for me to eat. By the age of thirteen I qualified as morbidly obese.  I didn’t realize how many years of my life I would have to give up to erase the mistakes of my parents negligence. And how many times a day I would have to fight the temptation to indulge my habit. 

One day, after scarfing down an entire quart of ice cream in front of my television, I decided to start going to overeaters anonymous meetings. The room was filled with people disgusted at their own existence. Engorged bodies created by the American system of consumption, desperately trying to break free. Working endlessly only to be pulled back in by the comforts of decadence. It was sickening to watch people who had worked diligently to get past their addiction only to be pulled back in by a conveniently placed McDonald’s at a weak point in their life. Good, hardworking people succumbing to their addictions and slowly killing themselves. And I was no different than the rest of them.

It took me three years to finally lose the weight. Every small victory was only achieved through tortuous work. At every meal I had to fight with myself in order to not just give in. Meanwhile, everywhere I go the world is telling me to give up and eat a fucking cheeseburger. Imagine trying to get sober while having a heroin dealer conveniently on every corner. It’s no wonder that 90% of people that lose weight eventually gain it all back. Actual success isn’t profitable. I’d have called it my own personal hell if so many people weren’t wallowing in there with me. 

As bleak as it was, the system worked. That week I managed to keep to my diet instead of shamefully shovelling oreos down my mouth. Overeaters anonymous became a weekly occurrence. The only problem was the drive back. 

People don’t tend to notice billboards. The experience of having advertisements constantly thrown into your face is such a routine occurrence that it becomes nothing more than white noise. But after listening to someone screaming about losing their foot to diabetes, the last thing you want to see are pictures of thin, smiling models gorging themselves on the same food that makes your life miserable. Driving home from overeaters anonymous, every fast food ad feels like a slap in the face. It was on those drives back that I began to focus on how much crap is being shoved down our throats. 

I began to hate driving. Every highway drive was filled with constant reminders of how long I had fallen prey to my vices, and how it was encouraged by our culture of easy gratification. There was a real rage building up inside me. For a while, the anger was subdued by a strict, intense workout schedule and a regimented diet. But eight months and seventy five pounds later, the fury still festered within me, and it soon became unbearable. 

At every overeaters anonymous meeting there is a certain amount of misery that is to be expected. Over time, you become desensitized to people’s problems. Even though we had the weight of profitability working against us, there’s no denying that these are our own problems; blaming the outside world won’t fix your issues. We knew the consequences of what we were doing and all of our problems we brought upon ourselves. The same can’t be said about a child. 

It’s usually not surprising to see a fat kid with the way these companies target children. Preying on those that are too young to know any better is just easier. Plus, if you can get a child hooked on your poison, then you’ve got yourself a lifetime customer. Children typically live in a state of bliss, though. The consequences won’t rear their heads for decades to come, so they are unaware of how awful what has been done to them truly is. So even though their bodies have been slowly morphed into a pile of mush, they still manage to maintain their spirit. Not this kid though. He couldn’t have been any older than twelve and he looked as broken down as the rest of us adults.  I remember being that age, I remember the self loathing, I remember wondering why everyone else could keep the weight off while I continue to fail. I know how bitter that can make a person.

I left that meeting with tears in my eyes only to be taunted by those same fucking billboards. Every billboard I passed on the highway boiled my blood. I began thinking of all the years that had been taken from me, taken from so many people, so many people driven to death. They get you before you’re ever truly aware of the dangers, and once you fully understand what you’re doing, you’re already hooked. This isn’t just true for fast food either. Between fast food, gambling, strippers, prescription medication, online shopping, cigarettes, alcohol and plastic surgery, nearly everyone is addicted to something. We all spin our wheels until we finally break down. We blame ourselves for the failings that we were pushed into. 

My anger had me driving faster and faster, seeing red the whole way. Suddenly, everything went clear, and it was just me, the open road, and two golden arches egging me on. I couldn’t stop staring at that behemoth of gluttony. In those few seconds, I decided that something needed to be done. 

The first thing I did when I got home was pack my car with whatever items in my garage I felt could do the most damage. A crowbar, hammer, bottles of black spray paint and an old baseball bat were logged into the trunk of my car. Then all that was left to do was wait.

At midnight, I began looking for billboards to destroy. Initially, it seemed pointless. Most of these eyesores were absolute monoliths. A single thick concrete pole hoisting a giant sign up sixty feet tall in order to scream their asinine message to the world. You take one look at those fuckers and you know there’s no way you’ll get anywhere close to touching them before falling to your death. It was as though I was an ant screaming at a God. But I kept driving. 

The farther you get from the city, the more manageable the task becomes. The signs get shorter and more climbable.  Plus, there are less eyeballs that you have to avoid. I passed by cornfield after cornfield until I found a target that even I could muster. The billboard was just a large piece of stretched canvas barely six feet off the ground.

I pulled the car over, grabbed the bat and started swinging. Within minutes the canvas was torn to shreds. Whilst slashing through the canvas, I came to a realization. I thought to myself , “Fuck ice cream, fuck pizza, fuck cupcakes, burgers and pie; no amount of food could ever be as satisfying as what I’m doing in this moment”. There was no sense of shame in my actions, no sickness or self hatred present after I was done. Instead, there was a sense of pride in my work.

Most of my life I had spent floating through the motions, doing the bare minimum amount of work to survive. My free time was typically spent consuming rather than actually doing anything with a purpose. That’s how I ballooned up to three hundred pounds in the first place. Work was always something I did in order to afford my life. Even the rigid workout schedule that I had stuck to throughout the last six months was only done in pursuit of weight loss rather than enjoyment. This was different. I looked out in awe of what I had done. To me, there was nothing more beautiful. 

After that first night I was hooked. Instead of spending my weekends sitting on the couch and gorging myself on food, I would go out hunting these goliaths. I grew tired of the small ones pretty quickly. I even enrolled in climbing lessons just so I could get my hands on bigger prey. My workouts became training sessions. I was working on my body for more than health and aesthetics, I was sculpting it into a tool of destruction. I finally had something to work towards.

I filled my trunk with carabiners, rope and weapons. You’ve always got to make sure you’ve got the right weapon for your target. If you’re going for canvas or poster board, then you’re going to want something that can tear the thing to shreds. For those purposes I usually go with a crowbar or machete. But if your target is something harder, like vinyl or the glass plating on electronic billboards, then you’re going to want to focus your attention on sheer blunt force. A baseball bat or hammer will usually do the trick. When you come across something you simply can’t break, then it’s time to grab the spray paint. 

You can try therapy, meditation, yoga, or even plain old exercise, but if you ask me, there is nothing more cathartic than my late night vandalism runs. Every moment I spent in the act was spent in some kind of rush. From the hunting, to the climbing, to the final kill. I never thought of myself as particularly violent, but every strike I delivered added to my new sense of clarity; and I chased that high. Blow after exhilarating blow I would drive my hammer straight into the vinyl until there was nothing left to beat. You could get lost in it. So lost that you forget that what you’re doing is highly illegal. 

Like I said, Billboards tend to function as nothing more than background noise. The buzz of a hungry mosquito before it feeds off your blood. If you kill them quietly enough, it will take awhile before anyone notices they’re missing. Yes, there were definitely people that saw the battered carcasses of these preachers of quick consumption. But it was rare for anyone to care enough to take the time to report it, and these types of things were usually blamed on bored local teenagers. Nobody was searching for a grown man with an office job. 

At first, I was relieved that nobody noticed me. It meant that I had one less thing to worry about. That relief turned to irritation as the weeks turned to months. It’s normal to want recognition for your work. I never needed that in my job because I didn’t care about the work aside from a paycheck but this was different. Considering the amount of hours that I put into destroying these things, I was looking for someone to at least acknowledge what was going on. I felt like I was a powerful vigilante, but in reality I was insignificant. 

These advertising giants didn’t care about the billboard. I had spent far more time thinking about those things then the people who had put them up in the first place. They were relics of the past. Their focus was directed at the vast collection of noise that is the internet. If I really wanted to speak to these corporate powerhouses, I had to get online. 

Everyone, from the most prolific serial killers to the kids stealing cookies out of the cookie jar, will get sloppy if they go unrecognized for too long. At that point I thought I was immune to punishment. I started to document every kill. Starting with an iPhone, but eventually investing money into a high quality camera and spotlights. Once I was satisfied with my photos, I blasted that shit onto every social media platform I could think of. I wanted to spread the word.

 It didn’t work. Nothing, no engagement, no traction, nobody listening. I knew that if I wanted to be heard, I would have to make a deal with the devil. I bought advertising space. Soon, people began to hear me.

My message started gaining popularity. Within a matter of months, my work became the new favorite iconography of the four year revolutionary. Kids were having my destruction printed on to posters to show how enlightened they were. None of this bothered me until people started monetizing it. Plastering my images onto sweatshop T-shirts, coffee mugs and stickers. Consumable products bought by people in order to feel like they’re sticking it to the man. That struck a nerve, but I eventually became comfortable with the commodification of my art. After all, what was I going to do, sue them? The only reason I hadn’t been thrown in jail yet was my ability to remain anonymous. You can’t exactly get a copyright on vandalism. Plus, it may have only been edgy teenagers and low-level profiteers, but at least someone was listening to me. My sentiments weren’t the same once the brands got a hold of it. 

After years of screaming into the void and waiting on a response, I finally got my wish.  There were no cops, no lawyers, no cease and desist. No proof that these companies had felt any of the harm I tried so hard to inflict. Nothing more than an ad campaign. And just like that, my revenge fantasy had crumbled. 

I had gotten used to the vapidity of social media. But even I didn’t like to spend a lot of time in the cesspool that is Twitter. However, no amount of trashy twitter threads could prepare me for the Wendy’s twitter page retweeting one of my pictures of a shredded McDonald’s billboard with the caption “Buck the system, Eat at Wendy’s”. I sat looking at that horrible reappropriation for close to twenty minutes, hoping I had imagined it. I would be able to laugh at the irony of it all, if it wasn’t for how blatantly sleazy it was. 

Wendy’s had set off a trend. It started with other brands sharing my images in order to bash their competitors, purposefully missing the point under the guise of humor. The kind of humor that corrodes everything to the point of meaninglessness. A certain self awareness that allows people to let their guard down just enough for brands to cram their message a little further down your throat. Eventually, this got to the point where brands were commissioning billboards to look like I had demolished them, personal stylizations and all. 

The entire thing made me nauseous. They knew not to challenge a threatening idea, but rather to declaw it. Turning it into nothing more than a sideshow. I wasn’t going to let that happen this time, and I was willing to put my wellbeing at risk for my message. I turned myself in.

They wouldn’t bite. No charges were pressed. Why allow a joke to be turned into a martyr? Eventually, I had to admit that they won.